More Mulching

It is just so easy to mulch the landscape beds before the plants grow up! 

And the soil is soft and the weeds haven't sprouted yet.

We put out a string line along the straight edges and go to town,  We dig a good deep edge that keeps the lawn from encroaching.  There are daffodils and orange daylilies in here.  Both can be mulched over without concern for their survival and right now they are only inches high.  This mulch is no longer hot.  In fact, its about ice cold.  So it can go right over the plants.

The length of this bed edge is over 165 feet.  That's a lot of shovels full and a lot of ups and downs. The digging is easy because we are only removing old mulch.  We are following the existing edge and the grass isn't growing yet so the sod is not hard to cut.  The old mulch is put in a pile where it continues to break down and will be used for drowning out weeds or amending lawn areas or as a final layer on clean fill areas.  Its pretty good stuff really.

We didn't know if we would get the new mulch added yesterday or not, but we did.  I was dog tired by the time we finished but I don't feel any the worse for wear today.  Yesterday was a perfect day for yard work.  It was dry and sunny, both warm and cool enough for hard work.

Today was warm again but cloudy and windy.  We are supposed to get some rain by morning which will freshen up the plants and clean the remaining mulch off of rocks and fences.  We took some time to heavily mulch the ground cover around this dry creek bed.  The ground cover is Houttuynia cordata or "Chameleon Plant" which is a terrible thuggish critter.  I wouldn't mind drowning it out some with a heavy mulch layer but it won't be discouraged at all.

That bed in summer

This colorful patch of crocuses is right by the door.  It was a popular spot for honey bees and when I went in later there was a big fat bumble bee passed out in one of the big white blooms.